Long chain alcohols are known to have beneficial effects on human health. Researchers have reported that a blend of long chain alcohols obtained from sugar cane wax was effective in lowering serum cholesterol in rats. Sho, H., Chinen, I., and Fukuda, N., J. Nutr. Sci. Vitaminol. 30:553 (1984). In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 5,856,316 discloses the use of a mixture of long chain alcohols from sugar cane wax for lowering serum cholesterol in humans.
From the above disclosures it is apparent that long chain alcohols have important properties for improving the health of humans and animals. These beneficial properties include improving stamina, lowering blood cholesterol levels, and decreasing platelet aggregation. One desirable route for ingesting these alcohols is in food or beverage products. However, these long chain alcohols are very insoluble in water, and the very small amounts of these long chain alcohols needed to produce beneficial health effects makes content uniformity of long chain alcohols in a dry blending operation very difficult to achieve. Therefore, a means is needed for incorporating these long chain alcohols into food or beverage products in a manner that yields a uniform and consistent distribution of these materials in the comestible product.
Expensive and difficult measures have been disclosed to overcome these problems. For example, EP 801904 A1, describes the use of long chain alcohols (defined as alcohols having more than 20 carbon atoms) in continuous fat phase compositions containing particulate sweeteners. The incorporation of the long chain alcohols at about 0.1% to about 0.4% was reported to decrease the viscosity of confectionery coatings made with this composition. All of the described compositions contained a particulated sweetener in addition to a chocolate material and a vegetable oil.
Similarly, WO 98/47385 discloses a fat emulsion with a blend of emulsifiers created by the blending of a partial glyceride with a phospholipid and a long chain alcohol having a chain length of greater than C20. The total weight of the glyceride and phospholipid in the composition must be greater than about 0.02 weight percent.
Despite the teachings of these disclosures, there is an ongoing need to easily incorporate long chain alcohols into food products so that the advantageous effects of these alcohols can be achieved.